Going Intel core 2 duo spec check

[burtie]

Finally have decided to take the plunge and get a Intel core 2 duo setup.Here is a little spec check below
i`ve a max budget of £380,so the wife tells me

Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz
Asus P5K Intel P35
GeIL 4GB (4x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler
HIS ATI Radeon HD 3870 XT ICEQ3 512MB GDDR4

£362.95 including Vat

Thoughts?And please don`t try and spend more for me.£380 is my max budget,or should i say my wife max budget.

[Webby]

Okay,

E2180 - £48.16
Abit IP-35 Dark Raider - £57.58
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) 4-4-4-12 800MHz - £68.14
Thermalright Ultima 90 + Fan - £28.13 + ~£5
3870 (non standard cooling but stock speed) - £115.61

Total £322.62 including VAT and delivery (free) all from Scan first 3 on today only

[EarlGrey]

You'd be daft not to get: Intel Pentium Dual-Core, E2220, Socket 775, Allendale Core, 2x2.4 GHz, 1MB Cache, Retail as its just £52 from Scan Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

And if you're not overclocking then the stock heatsink will do fine

Also, given you are under budget, get a stock 8800GT instead £20 more but you'll be glad of it in the long run.

[Webby]

I did think about putting in the faster chip (was going to add a note at the end but completely forgot) and the 8800GT but decided to stay mostly the same for sake of ease of comparison with the prices. Also I didn't know if the 3870 had been chosen for its better media credentials rather than out and out gaming performance.

[vaio]

I would stick with the 2180 and Geil ultra........good budget combo that should scale well.
You could save a few pounds by changing the Tuniq for an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro or Xigmatek s1283. (either of these are under £20)

Both of them keep my Allendale 6300 reasonably cool at 3.3 ghz 24/7 full load.

Make sure you allow for a decent power supply.

[Sukh]

I would balance the cost of ordering from Ocuk and Scan against the free shipping if you place all your order at scan especially with the today only parts
And the 8800gt is available for £123 at ocuk

[burtie]

Well i`ve had a little redo of my basket,and yes its at OCUK.I`d previously picked the Ati card for some strange mad reason as I`ve had the 8800GT 512Mb in mind for a while

So here it is,i`m not ordering until thursday and it will be with OCUK.

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit x2
(£65.78)
Leadtek GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
(£135.11)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail
(£50.51)
Asus P5K Premium/WiFi-AP Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
(£109.26)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)
(£17.61)
Sub Total : £321.94
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £57.91
Total : £388.80

Just a little over my budget but i`m sure i can squeeze £8 out of the wife,Its just the motherboard i`m unsure about really.The rest of my system is... 2x hard drives,case,Dvdrw,and a corsair 450w PSU.I also am running Vista 64 Ultimate.

[Cistron]

If you need Wifi I'd go with an extra internal/external Wifi module and drop to a cheaper mainboard. That will knock another 40 quid off your bill.

You might want to consider ordering from Scan. All your components are sold there (not sure about the graphics card though) at a cheaper price and you can get free shipping.

[burtie]

Humm never ordered from scan.I`ve only ever ordered from OCUK, but i`ll have a look at scans site.Thanks all for the input.

[Pob255]

Ok if you fixed to go with OcUK
consider the Akasa AK-965 CPU Cooler over the freezer7pro, same performance about £5 cheaper
I notice they've got the big typhoon for £30 which is prittry good compaired to there other prices.
Also the Scythe Kama Cross for £23.50

Depending on if you plan to OC the pants off this and such then the motherboard is ether ok or overpriced/featured
most p35 motherboards will oc just as well as any other up to a certain point it's only on the more pricey pro boards that make the differnce with additional features and indepth tweeaking for extream oc (which I doubt you'd be able to do anyway on that cpu, most of the e2xxx cap out around 3.4ghz)

EDIT: Personally I would go with Scan cheaper prices and free shipping through hexus